Bought and paid for by Toyota. Since Toyota did pay a huge fine, since “number of incidents caused by accelerators hanging up on incorrectly fitted floor mats, …A subsequent investigation discovered that the car had been fitted with all-weather floor mats designed for a Lexus RX, which were too long for the ES350, thus trapping the accelerator pedal after a full-throttle application and causing the crash.”. But no, it wasnt the computers fault. It was Toyotas for putting the two pedals too close, sticky pedals and bad floor mats.
*Car manufacturer Toyota has agreed to pay a staggering $1.2 billion to avoid prosecution for covering up severe safety problems with “unintended acceleration,” according to court documents, and continuing to make cars with parts the FBI said Toyota “knew were deadly.”
A deferred prosecution agreement, filed today, forced Toyota to “admit” that it “misled U.S. consumers by concealing and making deceptive statements about two safety related issues affecting its vehicles, each of which caused a type of unintended acceleration.” …At the time of the first ABC News report, Toyota attempted to assure its drivers that the incidents of sudden acceleration without warning were solely caused by floor mats becoming stuck on the gas pedals or driver error. But already other customers were complaining of similar problems with sudden acceleration, but some had nothing to do with the floor mats and they maintained they weren’t to blame either.
ABC News published dozens of reports in the following months as Toyota said it investigated and announced massive recalls to address the accelerators being stuck under floor mats – repeatedly assuring drivers that the problem had been taken care of. But today Toyota admitted that the recalls did not cover all the cars they knew were in danger and said that they also concealed another cause of sudden acceleration they had found during their investigations – “sticky” pedals, which refers to the accelerator getting stuck partially depressed.
In December 2009, the court records showed the company responded to “media accusations that it was continuing to hide defects in its vehicles” by publishing a statement on Toyota’s website saying the company “has absolutely not minimized public awareness of any defect or issue with respect to its vehicles [and] [a]ny suggestion to the contrary is wrong and borders on irresponsibility.”*
I learned on a 3 on a tree. Most cars have been manuals. There are good and bad about both. For plow trucks, an auto is better believe it or not. You’ll burn up a clutch pretty quick in a manual.
Anyway, I’ve got a 2019 4Runner now. All two months worth of now. It’s an auto of course. I live in the montains of Colorado and drive half of the time on snow covered roads. What I never liked about other autos is that they would downshift going uphill to keep speed. Well, that’s fine unless you’re on a snow covered twisty mountain road. That downshift can cause you to lose traction (or worse). I like the 4Runners ability to just slap the shifter over and pick my gears 1 through 5 to prevent that. And then press it right back into auto.
My father taught me to use one foot so I was surprised when I noticed that he had shifted to two. He told me it was because he didn’t want to be known as a slow old driver and he could go faster if he reserved his left foot for braking… He was nearly ninety - it was terrifying.
I stick with single foot because I only have manual transmissions.
I developed a habit of keeping my foot off the clutch as much as possible, after that one time the throwout bearing went bad. Might have been a time I held the clutch down at a light, but that habit went away quickly when my clutch master started leaking.
The last car I had that was possible on was a '63 Studebaker. It used to work decades ago, but automatics are different now.
As to the topic of this thread (that my parenthetical comment inspired), my driver’s ed teacher claimed it was a problem due to maybe pushing the brake and the gas pedal at the same time, either when flummoxed or in an emergency.
In my opinion, I’d guess two-footers go through brake pads and shoes faster, as others have alluded to.
You might gues from my name I’m hardly a kid, and heel-and-toe shifting pretty much went out when cars moved the accelerator (usually called a throtle at the time) from the center position between the clutch and the brake to the right.
I drive both automatics and manually-shifted vehicles. I have always used my left foot. In manually-shifted vehicles I use it for both clutch and brake, also using the right foot for brake and accelerator pedal, depending on immediate context. Sometimes, (most often when starting off from a stopped position on steep hills), I have found it useful to operate all three pedals simultaneously. Automatic transmission vehicles are simpler. I do often choose to brake with my left foot. I don’t know from where this meme originated about people who use their left foot on the brake being likely to push pedals they didn’t intend to push. It’s a stupid meme. People who pay attention to their own driving and enjoy the process and are fully engaged in it tend to be quite aware of each and every decision they make as they do so. I sometimes operate the steering wheel with my knees. I often operate it with just one hand. I assure you that whenever I do these things I know exactly what I’m doing, I’m aware of my limitations, I’m aware of the traffic conditons, road conditions, and immediate situation in all its respects and my choice of doing what I’m doing is based on a reasonable assessment of appropriate safety and adequate control of the vehicle that I’m operating.
I normally drive a manual transmission. When I drive an automatic I need to mentally adjust to not use my left foot, it usually take one or two seatbelt-checks (my left foot can only put pedals all the way down) to get there.
My left foot only ever works the clutch in a manual car. Never the brake. In an auto it is only ever a right-footed exercise. Seems sensible to me as in normal circumstances you are only ever using acceleration or braking and the more feet involved, the more chance for error.
It looks as if there is no ‘factual’ answer to the question. Here in the UK, the vast majority of drivers learn on a stick shift. This is partly because that’s what the driving schools have, but also because a driver who passes their test on an auto, is not allowed to drive a stick.
As mentioned above, anyone used to driving with a clutch will tend to push the left foot all the way down unless they think about it, so that tends to cause some very sharp braking if they try to use the left foot on the brake pedal. Learners are sternly cautioned that if they ‘ride’ the clutch it will cause wear and premature failure of the thrust bearing, so most learn not to do it.
All this means is that a UK driver will nearly always use their right foot exclusively, which leads me to the conclusion that we mostly drive the way we were taught. I have seen people trying to drive an auto for the first time and using both feet. Accelerating and braking at the same time is a Bad Idea.
There are issues with driving an automatic with both feet.
When I am following a two-footed driver it is obvious from the continually blinking brake lights. This causes me to begin ignoring the brake lights since they are no longer reliably telling me that the car will be slowing down. That is the purpose of brake lights, to warn the other cars.
Keeping your brakes constantly on/off, on/off, on/off, does not only cause premature brake wear, it also keeps your brakes from cooling down. Hot brakes can cause brake fade and failure on long declines.
And in a panic stop situation two footed drivers will have a tendency to slam both feet to the floor, the brake and gas pedals, with possibly disastrous results.
There are other, even more serious issues here.
The most serious, is that if you press enough for the lights, you are probably almost or actually activating the brakes, albeit lightly. This causes extreme heating of the discs (drum brakes probably have too much slop, but might not), and glazing of the pads, reducing the overall braking effectiveness tremendously.
The second problem is just the extra gas wasted overcoming the friction.
It’s my understanding that using the right foot to use the break and gas pedals is a hold over from using manual transmissions.
Your left foot pushes in the clutch. Right foot breaks. Let out the clutch and right foot accelerates.
Using the right foot for two pedals became the way driving is taught. The change to automatic transmissions didn’t change the use of the right foot.
There’s also a safety factor because breaking requires removing the driver’s right foot from the gas, which of course is desirable when you’re trying to stop the vehicle.
Breaking and simultaneously pressing the gas would not be a effective way to stop a vehicle.
In the hope of getting back to the OPs question:
As others have alluded to, I (careful, opinion) think that most people in most situations in a manual transmission brake with their right foot. Left foot braking would then mostly happen in automatic transmissions. If you find an estimate of the percentage of drivers who do this, and combine it with crash statistics that detail the transmission type, you might be able to infer a likelyhood which is safer. Not that I did this, or found a study which did.
As for confusing brake and gas pedals: That does happen, and it causes accidents, as evidenced by news reports. I haven’t found a statistic on the frequency, though.
Is this actually true? I have heard that on most vehicles the brakes are stronger than the engine, and thus it would be hard on your vehicle but that the brakes would win in this case.
In an EV I wonder how the system handles it, I could see it the brake pedaling overriding the gas pedal. (because in an EV, there is a regen form of braking, and the motors can either be in regen or in acceleration but cannot be in both at the same time. So the logical thing to do would be for the authors of the EV ECU to handle the contradictory case of “accelerator and brake activated at the same time” with “brake beats accelerator”)
For an answer to the EV question, here’s this video. (in a Tesla, of course)
In a Tesla, apparently it’s just fine to two foot drive. If you get into a panic stop situation and mash both pedals to the floor, it’s totally fine - the car will brake the same as if you moved your foot over. You know, for the next 3-5 years before a computer drives you everywhere. Accidentally hit both pedals at the same time? Brake overrides accelerator. Also, you will not be silently driving along burning up your brakes and keeping your brake lights on because your left foot is resting on the brake pedal.
